1. Field of the Invention
The claimed invention relates generally to barbecue cooking grills, and in particular to two stage fire control cooking grills for barbecue cooking grills.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Charcoal barbecue grills normally employ a metal cooking grate disposed above a layer of burning charcoal. Placing meat products that produces significant amounts of fat drippings while cooking, such as beef and pork, on a typical cooking grate presents potential for fire flare ups as the fat drippings make contact with the burning coals. Although cooking these types of foods on a charcoal cooking grill provides numerous benefits such as smoked flavor and removing excess fat secretions from the food, the cooking of food over burning charcoal requires constant attention to prevent the fat drippings from exacerbating the charcoal into uncontrolled flames.
The intensification of the charcoal into uncontrolled flames presents potential problems such as burning the food being cooked or causing personal injury or property damage. This problem is particularly relevant when attempting to barbecue in a limited space, such as balconies in apartment buildings and condominiums. When barbecuing in these confined surroundings, special care has to be taken to minimize the height of the flames coming from the barbecue grill so that the surrounding structure does not become damaged.
Controlling the fat dripping from food being cooked over charcoal while still allowing the charcoal to impart the desired charcoal flavor onto the food is a difficult task to achieve. Two of the more common remedies for addressing fire flare ups created by fat drippings exacerbating the charcoal are simply moving the food to a different portion of the grate or spraying the flames with water. However, these are temporary remedies present other problems such as unevenly cooking the food and stirring up ash onto the food. To provide more effective remedies to the problem of charcoal flare up, the prior art presents several devices with different way of controlling the fat drippings from food being cooked over the charcoal.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,191,591 which issued to Bennett discloses a Charcoal Grill having a curved bottom 12 below an ordinary wire-mesh grill 22. The curved bottom has individual draining apertures 30 in indentations 26. The apertures 30 reduce the tendency for the grease drippings of meat to ignite flames on the curved bottom. However, grease drippings that fall directly on the charcoal still have a tendency to exacerbate the charcoal exciting the coals into flames. In like manner, U.S. Pat. No. 3,424,145 issued to Stitt discloses a Grill Liner having a noncombustible liner comprising a sheet-like body configured to the interior shape of a fire bowl and provided with radially extending corrugations defining upper and lower air passages extending inwardly from the peripheral edge of the liner completely thereabout. The liner is provided with apertures communicating the lower air passages with the top of the liner and hence combustible fuel supported thereon. The liner can be reinforced by a subjacent network of tin relatively rigid reinforcing wires. The upper rack is a conventional overhead rack, which appears to be a wire rack. Both of these prior art devices are used underneath the charcoal providing means for excess dripping to flow through to the bottom of the fire bowl. These devices reduce the amount of charcoal fire flare up, however, flare up is still a common occurrence with these device due to drippings falling directly on the charcoal and nearly instantaneously causing a flame to form. Therefore, there is a need for a device that will allow a portion of the drippings to fall onto the coals creating a more controlled amount of flame and having structure for preventing the fire from growing to an unmanageable size.
The barbecue grill of U.S. Pat. No. 4,703,746 issued to Hitch discloses a lower grate member and an upper grate member that generally have identical patterns of slots formed therethrough with generally identical patterns of bars delimiting the slots. The upper grate is slidable with respect to the lower grate such that the slots may be in complete registry to allow full heat transmission therethrough or the bars of the upper grate may be disposed to overlie the slots of the lower grate to prevent flare-ups. A drawback of this device is that the lower and upper grates not only prevent flames from coming through the grate system, but they also prevent the desired charcoal smoke from reaching the food placed upon the upper grate. Accordingly, a compromise has to be reached with devices of this type in that a certain amount of flame has to be allowed through the grate opening so that smoke will also be allowed through to contact the food. Therefore, this device does not fill the need for a device that will allow a portion of the drippings to fall onto the coals creating a more controlled amount of flame and having structure for preventing the fire from growing to an unmanageable size.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,763,639 and 4,969,449 disclose disposable covers for the upper grill member of a barbecue grill. The covers are made from a manually formable material having a plurality of perforations or holes therein for directing the quantity and flow of air beneath the cover when the cover is placed onto the cooking surface of the grill. These two covers collect the fat drippings from cooked foods on top of the cover surfaces. This makes these prior art devices undesirable for several reasons with the more notable one being the collection of the fat drippings on top of the cover makes the food cook in a pool of fat drippings gathered by the cover. This is undesirable in that the food being cooked retains much of the otherwise excess fat drippings when the food is bathed in its own fat secretions. A second undesirable aspect of using covers of this sort is that once a fire is created by the fat drippings that do fall through the perforations of the covers, the covers do not provide means for minimizing the flames. In fact, these covers provide an obstacle for a person attending the fire who wishes to douse the fire with water. Therefore, these covers do not address the problem of minimizing or elevating fire flare ups that may occur.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,211,105 discloses a grill pan comprising a food plate, an oil pan placed under the food plate, and a lower pan placed under the oil pan for burning a fire to heat the oil pan and the air in a hollow space between the oil pan and the food plate, the oil pan having a bottom corrugated with a plurality of holes for heated air to flow through and two opposite recesses near a circumferential edge. The food plate is also corrugated and has a plurality of holes for oil coming out of food placed on the food plate to flow through down to drop on to the oil pan and then flow into the two opposite recesses of the oil pan. This type of device is adapted for the frying of food over a heating source such as charcoal and is not designed to allow the smoke from the fire to barbecue the food. The device does provide structure to capture the oil and fat drippings from the food, but does so in such a way that it restricts a major portion of the charcoal effect from reaching the food being cooked. Therefore, this device is not capable of achieving the desired effect of barbecuing the food with the smoky flavor of charcoal while still preventing fire flare ups to occur due to fat drippings coming into contact with burning charcoal.
FIGS. 5 and 7 of U.S. Pat. No. 5,553,601 discloses parallel plates in a smoker assembly of a barbecue. The parallel plates have offset aperture patterns that facilitate the transfer of heat while preventing the accumulation of liquids from any food in a combustion chamber. The parallel plate are flat allowing accumulated fat drippings on the surface of the bottom plate to flow through the holes of the bottom plate thereby providing a source of aggravation to the fire below the bottom plate. This device catches a portion of the liquids coming from food being cooked, but allows a majority of the liquids to ultimately fall on the fire below. Accordingly, this type of device does not significantly reduce flare ups when food secreting large amount of fat drippings are cooked. Therefore, there is a need for a device that is capable of collecting a larger amount of liquids dripping from the cooking surface so that many different kinds of food can be barbecued without the problem of dealing with a volatile fire.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 5,911,812 discloses a cooking grille having elongated slots, rather than circular holes, for receiving heat from a barbecue below, and for directing fluids, such as fats, sauces, and meat juices. The cooking grille is placed upon and attached to a second collecting grille adapted for receiving the cooking grille in sliding engagement in a spaced apart relationship. The collection grille provides conducting channels which are formed at an angle with the horizontal for moving fluids laterally for collection and for avoiding contact with hot portions of the cooking equipment. However, those fluids that fall directly into the fire are free to start a fire flare up. Therefore, there is a need for a device that minimizes fires created by fluids such as fat drippings falling on the burning charcoal.
Accordingly, it is an object of the claimed invention to provide a device that reduces the amount of flames created by the heat source of a barbecue grill.
Another object of the claimed invention is to provide a device that collects a portion of the liquids dropped toward the heat source of a barbecue grill.
Yet another object of the claimed invention is to provide a device having structure to hold water so as to provide a source of moist heat during the cooking of food on a barbecue grill.
A further object of the claimed invention is to provide a backstop for the cooking surface to assist the acquisition of an item onto a utensil being used to turn an item over on a barbecue grill.
Still a further object of the claimed invention is to provide a device that makes it more safe to barbecue in confined areas such as balconies of apartment buildings and condominiums.
The claimed invention reduces the height and amount of flames created by a barbecue grill by performing two different tasks. First, the two stage fire control barbecue cooking apparatus collects a portion of the secretions from food that is being cooked on the barbecue grill before the secretions reach the heat source of the grill. This reduces the amount of flames created by the barbecue grill because the apparatus collects potentially flammable secretions before they provide fuel for the heat source of the grill. Second, the flames are reduced by redirecting the smoke from the fire back toward the fire in two different stages, thus reducing the oxygen available to the fire. The reduction of oxygen available to the heat source reduces the potential for the heat source flaming out of control.
With the foregoing objects and explanation in mind, a two stage fire control barbecue cooking apparatus is provided. The cooking apparatus comprises a collection plate and a cooking plate with back stop. In one embodiment of the invention, the collection plate is sized and shaped such that it rests against the inside walls of the fire bowl of a barbecue grill, just above the heat source, and the cooking plate is held in place over the collection plate by the grate holding means of the barbecue grill. In an alternate embodiment of the invention, the collection plate is suspended above the heat source of the barbecue grill by a plurality of hanging members extending from the bottom side of the cooking plate. In this alternate embodiment, a plurality of hanging members receiving apertures are provided through the collection plate so that the hanging members extend through the receiving apertures suspending the collection plate on the hanging members.
The collection plate is made of material that is sized and shaped to overlie the heat source of a barbecue grill having a center surface with semicircular cross section and a curved lip portion about the center surface. The curved lip portion has a greater radius than the semicircular cross section so that it deflects gases being released by the heat source back toward the heat source reducing flames created by the heat source. A plurality of extruded apertures are provided through the center surface of the collection plate. The extrusion portions of the extruded apertures extend oppositely from the concavity of the center surface so that they direct a portion of the secretions onto the surface of the collection plate. The extruded apertures allow gases and flames from the heat source to pass through the collection plate. The semicircular cross section of the collection plate guides secretions from food being cooked to the perimeter of the collection plate.
A fluid retention channel is provided about the center surface of the collection plate. The fluid retention channel walls extend above the surface of the collection plate and oppositely from the concavity of the collection plate. The outer surface of the inner retention wall retaining the secretions on the center surface of the collection plate.
The cooking plate has a top side, a bottom side, and a center portion bounded by a periphery portion, the cooking plate having size and shape to substantially cover the mouth of a barbecue grill fire bowl, the periphery portion engaging grate holding members of a barbecue grill. The cooking plate has a plurality of apertures through the center portion that are larger than the extruded apertures in the collection plate. A curved flange has a proximal end connected to the bottom side of the cooking plate that encircles the center portion of the cooking plate. The terminal end of the curved flange is configured to be in mating relationship with the inner wall of the barbecue grill so that it directs gases released by the heat source back toward the heat source so as to reduce flames from the heat source. As a useful addition to the device, a back stop member is connected to the top side of the cooking plate that extends substantially perpendicularly from the flat center surface.